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February 12, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Hello Ryan,
This is your cousin Terry, your Uncle Davids daughter. I hope after reading about my journey it will inspire you to get involved. I am always looking for sewing groups and crafters.
Many Blessings,
Terry (hugs)
I am an award-winning interior decorator whose mission is to give hope to ‘at risk’ women and children. Transforming the shelters that save people’s lives into beautiful sanctuaries that heal their spirit.
For my mother, making a home where her children felt safe and their spirits could soar was just as important as keeping them fed and clothed. Improving and decorating our modest home expressed love for her family. Through her example, I learned to envision possibilities, creatively shape environments, and the value of hard work involved in transformations.
From that seed came a love for decorating which began with family and friends, blossomed into a thriving business called Terry’s Enchanted Cottage, and ultimately became Enchanted Makeovers a organization that changes shelters for women and children into places of peace and possibilities. (Not just where basic needs are met, but spiritual needs for hope and beauty also).
The journey began in January of 2007, when the coordinator of a fund raising event for a local shelter expressed that he would be grateful if I would agree to paint even a single wall. As I viewed the depressing conditions, old prison beds, mold, decrepit paneling, the dingy, sad-looking area where women and children came to escape from domestic violence, or stayed to deal with drug addictions, I found my calling. I vowed to create a space for those women and children that would revive their broken spirits and help them heal.
Operating from the belief that our environment affects the way we feel about ourselves, how we see the world, and our place in it, I undertook a two year transformation of Grace Centers of Hope Women’s Shelter, Pontiac, Michigan. Armed with vision and belief that we can act to make our dreams reality, family, friends and community volunteers were recruited and organized to transform the shelter’s bedrooms. Donations of money and goods were solicited. Professional contractors and decorators were invited to participate. An extreme makeover replaced rooms of drab paneling, mismatched bedding and dreary, institutional colors, and in its place, a bright, cheerful, caring space emerged, punctuated by positive affirmations and items meant to inspire faith, and belief in the power to make dreams a reality. To emphasize the connection between transforming your environment and changing your life, a motivational speaker conducted a worksho p to encourage the shelter’s women to create their own vision of the future, how they would like to transform their own lives into something beautiful.
The work continues as we build a network of volunteers and begin work on our next ‘extreme makeover,’ benefiting the homeless women and children in our community, visibly demonstrating people care, showing them they are worthy of something better than what they’ve had, creating a lasting lesson that transformations are possible, and that beauty can rise from ashes..
Projects have been featured in several national publications, blessed with many awards and even a glimpse appearance on the Oprah Show.
August 1, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Terry….very interested in what you wrote above (Divine appointed I believe—based on the reason that I came to your cousin’s website (Northline Baptist Church)! Could you please let me know that this message reached you—-so that I can write more?
In His Honor…..Lillianna